


A Thorn In Your Side For Always

by anotetofollow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, I have no idea what else to tag this, Idiots in Love, Semi-Public Sex, Teasing, stan shorrigan 2k20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24670144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow
Summary: Morrigan and Shay Mahariel engage in a their own small battle during yet another Skyhold dinner party.Shay belongs to the wonderful @alynshir
Relationships: Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Morrigan/Female Warden (Dragon Age)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	A Thorn In Your Side For Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alynshir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alynshir/gifts).



> I'll be a thorn in your side  
> Till you die  
> I'll be a thorn in your side  
> For always  
> If we sink  
> We lift our love ([x](https://open.spotify.com/track/6DWLd9HwevN7XV8MxpQLLG))

Another day, another ridiculous dinner party. When Morrigan had left the Empress’s service for the Inquisition she had thought — perhaps _hoped_ was a better word — that these endless soirees were behind her. Unfortunately the ambassador seemed to have as much of a taste for these events as the Winter Palace courtiers did, and once again Morrigan had been trotted out as part of the Inquisitor’s retinue, to sip oversweet Antivan wine and make dull chit chat with Thedas’s most insipid nobles.

At least Shay was here, though. That was an advantage the court had never been able to match.

That evening Shay had been seated to her right, at the far end of one of the long tables that lined Skyhold’s hall. The spot was close to the hearth, the pleasant warmth from the fire making the draughty room almost bearable. Still, Morrigan wished that she was almost anywhere else. She had left Kieran in the care of Scout Harding and, while she trusted the dwarf to be a reliable chaperone, there was still a slight ache in her chest. It always felt this way when she and her son were separated. When she was at court Morrigan had been forced to leave Kieran in the care of others far too often. Having to do the same here galled her.

The man sitting opposite her was staring. He was thin and balding, wearing a frilly shirt of seafoam green that did not suit him, and he blinked owlishly from behind his mask every time he looked up at Morrigan. Here she was not forced to dress in finery, and her attire often drew such looks. This did not make them any more palatable, however.

“May I help you?” Morrigan asked, pursing her lips into a thin smile.

“Oh— no, madame.” The man flushed cherry red. “It is just— you bear a remarkable resemblance to the Empress’s advisor.”

Before Morrigan could open her mouth to deny it Shay spoke, not looking up from her plate. “She is.”

Her expression was carefully neutral, but Morrigan could see the amusement in the line of her back, the tilt of her ears. Clearly, this was how Shay intended to entertain herself for the evening.

“My apologies, madame,” the man said, making an awkward seated bow. “I had no idea that you were in residence here. Tell me, have you been long away from the capital?”

Morrigan breathed out slowly through her nostrils. This kind of banal conversation was anathema to her, and she had no desire to engage with it. Her years with Celene had given her some skill in the art, however, and she was well practised in feigning interest. And so, she painted on her blandest expression and forced herself to speak.

“Several months now,” she said.

“My word,” he said. “Out here, you are so cut off from the news of the court. Am I to assume that you no longer serve the Empire, then?”

“I serve the Inquisition.”

“At the Empress’s behest?”

“No,” Morrigan said flatly. “Unlike many in the Orlesian court, I possess the capacity to generate independent thoughts.”

Shay made a noise into her wineglass that might, to the untrained observer, have seemed like a cough. Morrigan recognised it as a strangled laugh, the kind her lover often made when indulging in this particular kind of torture.

Well, two could play at that game.

Morrigan leaned solicitously across the table, smiling sweetly at the red-faced noble. “I know not why you are talking to me, however,” she said, making a significant gesture towards Shay, “when the Hero of Ferelden herself is in your presence. I am sure that her anecdotes _far_ exceed my own.”

There was a high, grating sound of steel on china as Shay cut through a slice of apple tart with just a little too much force. Morrigan bit back a laugh as she saw her lover’s hackles go up, as quickly and stiffly as a hissing cat. Warden-Commander Mahariel’s title was known in Orlais, certainly, but her face was not, and often she could go entire weeks without anyone at Skyhold recognising her. Unless, of course, someone made introductions.

“The Hero of Ferelden,” the man breathed. “My word. There have been tales of you told across Orlais for years. I had never thought to meet you for myself.”

“And I have never thought of you at all,” Shay said irritably. “We have that in common.”

The noble was unperturbed, his watery eyes wide behind his mask. “But please, Commander, you must tell us of your adventures. Is it true that you were responsible for the crowning of the King of Orzammar?”

Several other toadies had caught wind of the conversation now, and were listening expectantly. Morrigan could see Shay’s jaw working as she oscillated between her desire to say something acerbic and her need to behave politely for the sake of the Inquisition. Eventually Shay laid her hands flat on the table, her ears twitching just a little as she turned towards her audience. _Reluctant, annoyed, slightly amused._

“There’s some truth in that,” she said. “I was in Orzammar to gain allies against the Blight, however. Anything else that may have occurred was purely incidental.”

If she had thought that this would be enough to placate the crowd, she had been wrong. Half a dozen nobles began talking at once, each battering Shay with their own idiotic questions about her exploits. Morrigan was the only one who noticed when Shay picked up a cracker from the edge of her plate and snapped it neatly in two.

It was a game, almost, or perhaps a battle. During their first few months of knowing one another Morrigan and Shay had been at odds in a far more tempestuous way, tangling themselves in arguments as each struggled to make sense of the delicate thing that was blossoming between them. Over the years this capricious passion had mellowed somewhat, but still the two of them found no small measure of enjoyment in making life difficult for one another. Not in large ways, not like those betrayals and departures that had once torn them asunder, not in ways that hurt. But there was a certain pleasure in these petty conflicts, the ones where each prodded the other like the dying embers of a fire, trying to raise a shower of sparks.

Before long Shay was inexorably engaged in conversation, the nobles batting their eyelids as they asked such insightful questions as _did you only speak elvish when you joined the Wardens?_ and _is it true that darkspawn can be banished by reciting the Chant of Light?_ To Morrigan’s amusement Shay lied when answering both of these enquiries, the hunter’s growing annoyance manifesting as a slight twitch in the corner of one eye.

Time for the coup de grâce, then. The side of the table Morrigan and Shay were seated at faced the wall, and a long tablecloth of embroidered damask hung from it almost to the floor. So it was that none of their dining companions saw when Morrigan placed her hand gently on the muscled curve of Shay’s thigh, stroking her fingers slowly upwards.

The effect was subtle but instant. Morrigan saw the way Shay rolled out her neck a little, flexed her fingers like a bird ruffling its feathers. _Surprise, greeting, right now?_ In response Morrigan made her touch a little lighter, began tracing slow circles at the inside of the hunter’s thigh, a pattern drawn ever-higher. While the slope of Shay’s shoulders said _stop this_ , she still parted her knees slightly to accommodate her lover’s movements. As some powdered lordling launched into a tale of his _own_ family’s involvement with the Grey Wardens, Morrigan pressed two fingers firmly between Shay’s legs. Remarkable composure; only the slightest intake of breath, a gentle press of teeth against her lower lip.

The party fizzled out not long after, with the gaggle of nobles heading to other parts of the castle to play cards or drink demitasse or have affairs with one another. Morrigan and Shay left through a side door, heading the usual route back to the gardens. They were barely halfway down the corridor when Shay pushed Morrigan up against the bare stone wall, pinning her shoulder with a calloused hand.

“You think you’re _very_ clever, don’t you?” she said, the faintest glint of mirth in her brown eyes.

“‘Tis easy to think something that is true.” Morrigan smiled indulgently. “Come, now. Do not tell me that you did not enjoy your company this evening? They were so… _insistent_.”

Shay made a sound that was half-groan, half-laugh, then leaned forward and pressed her lips to the hollow of Morrigan’s throat. She slipped one hand low, reaching through the straps of Morrigan’s skirts, but the mage caught her wrist before she could delve any deeper.

“I think not,” she said. “I believe I was the victor tonight, if you recall.”

“Meaning what?”

Morrigan wrapped one arm around Shay’s waist and pulled her close, turning her so that the elf was now backed up against the wall. She too had eschewed finery for the evening, and wore practical hunter’s leathers that clung to the lean curves of her. Morrigan deftly unfastened the laces of Shay’s breeches and slipped her hand inside them, smiling at the low sound of pleasure that elicited. They were barely twenty feet from the great hall, the door still open a crack behind them. Torchlight and the sound of conversation spilled through, both dim at the edges.

“Careful,” Shay said quietly.

“Why?” Morrigan said. “No one comes this way. We will be undisturbed, so long as you can keep silent.”

A sharp jutting of her jaw, a slow arching of her back. _Tease, insufferable, please continue_.

Morrigan laughed softly, leaning in to kiss her lover. As their lips met Morrigan let her fingers wander lower, through damp curls and into silken heat, feeling an answering gasp against her mouth. Shay braced one hand against Morrigan’s hip, the other at the back of her neck, gripping tightly as the mage continued her ministrations. There was a perfect tension in the hunter’s body, from her arched tiptoe-feet to the shallow rise of her chest, the threat of discovery making her alert, sharp. Morrigan increased the tempo of her touches, pressing her lips to Shay’s cheek, her throat, the exposed line of her collarbone.

When Shay gasped in response Morrigan gave her a warning look, and raised her free hand to touch a finger to her lips. “Hush,” she said. “If you are so concerned about being caught.”

Shay swallowed hard, her eyes dark with both vexation and desire. Morrigan held her gaze as she drew her closer, matching her movements to the hunter’s breath, feeling the way she pushed gently back against her. Before long Shay’s shoulders began to heave, and she closed her eyes as the first wave broke over her. She tipped her head back against the wall, biting off curses at the tip of her tongue, fingernails sinking hard into skin. Morrigan held her there for as long as she was able, loving the strands of golden hair plastered to her brow, loving the way Shay’s hips rolled against the heel of her hand, loving the way the corded muscles of her neck stood out in her ecstasy, loving, above all, her.

The tension fell from Shay suddenly, and then she was resting against the stone, fighting to catch her breath. When Morrigan drew her hand away Shay grasped her wrist, the movement viper-sudden. She brought the mage’s hand to her lips, sucking her fingers clean, biting down gently when Morrigan deigned to smile at her. _Retort, you’re awful, I love you._

“Was that so difficult?” Morrigan asked, stroking her thumb along Shay’s jaw as she withdrew her hand.

“ _You_ are difficult.”

Morrigan dipped a curtesy, the movement as elegant and fluid as any courtier’s. “It is an area in which I excel.”

Shay laughed then, a genuine, earthy sound. She leaned up to kiss her, lips still wet. “Never fear,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll find some way to have my revenge.”


End file.
